


here's to never growing up!

by chococchii



Category: DCU (Comics), Impulse (Comics), Red Robin (Comics), Robin (Comics), Superboy (Comics), Teen Titans (Comics), Wonder Girl (Comics), Young Justice (Comics)
Genre: Best Friends, Character Study, Core Four, Driving, Friendship, Late Night Conversations, Legacy Heroes, Relationship Study, Sidekicks, Sleeping in the car, Team as Family, but i ended up pulling 3000+ words out of my ass lol, i only meant to write a couple paragraphs, spending the night, staying young, yknow with no plot and just a little introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-18 07:07:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28988256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chococchii/pseuds/chococchii
Summary: It had started casually, to be fair. Tim had come up to them, all happy and proud, because he had finally managed to buy a car on his own, without asking Bruce any money nor courtesy for some discount. But of course they made him regret in a second; wiggling eyebrows, suggestions that were less subtle than they should’ve been, friendly pats on the shoulders. It was still absurd, how Tim could not hate them despite the way they constantly pestered him and were basically the only reason he ever got out of his house aside from patrol and school. Most likely, it wasexactlythe reason why he kept loving them so much.
Relationships: Bart Allen & Tim Drake & Kon-El | Conner Kent & Cassie Sandsmark
Comments: 6
Kudos: 17





	here's to never growing up!

**Author's Note:**

> sooo yeah. i don't even know what this is.  
> you know, they just make me _so_ weak. and i've had the beginning of this thingie here somewhere buried in my computer, and i pretty much had the crazy idea of finishing it.  
> turns out "finishing" means going from half a page to five whole.  
> anyways!! first off, i want to thank once again @wettthepotterheadss4120 on tumblr for beta reading this for me!!  
> then, just so that your reading experience is complete (better known as, you don't fall off the clouds when i mention shit):  
> 
> 
>   * the first song they sing, the one where also the words are quoted, is [_young volcanoes_](https://youtu.be/00ytAjri5yY) by the epic fall out boy;
>   * the second song you may stream, my main inspiration when i first started this, is [_this is the life_](https://youtu.be/_OBUlgo3NSM), by any Mcdonald.
>   * and finally, the song you could listen to during the last part is [_here's to never growing up_](https://youtu.be/6YL-SjK5EMY), by avril lavigne.
> 

> 
> that being said, yeah, i'll continue rambling at the end.

Conner is the first one to wake up.

The sun of a terse sky caresses his eyelids, tugging them open with a tickle. The air is warm, through the open windows of the car, but it still isn’t insufferably hot, despite the summer that has already taken over a few weeks ago. More or less, it should be nine am; which is weird, since it had to be at least five or six am when they all fell asleep, roughly.

But he’s never been much of a sleeper, so it’s really nothing new.

Head still fuzzy from some dream he can’t even remember anymore, he slowly pulls his feet down from the back of the driver’s seat, and for a second he fears Tim will wake up. Instead, all that comes from his mouth is a muffled whine, probably because of the way he buried his head in his arms, broadly slumped over the steering wheel. It’s a shame he can’t see his face, he guesses, because sleep is the only time when some worry doesn’t seem to draw a frown within his narrow features, and calm makes him look almost like an angel from some Renaissance painting; thin lips, porcelain skin, black hair framing his face, an undefined age.

However, a low groan reminds him he can’t move too much, either. Bart is curled up on himself, propped against him, round cheeks pressed against his chest, like he’s looking for the warmth of his broad body. Brown strands are spread across his right shoulder, long and thick; a kind of relax that could never seem to get at him while he’s awake holds him whole, allowing a line of drool run down his chin and his lower lip, chapped, out of that obnoxious habit of his of constantly biting it. With that soft face and everything about him being so small, he looks like a child.

A grunt calls his scattered attention, as Cassie lifts her weight a little on the passenger’s seat, with the side of her face squished against the window. The grip of her fingers on the muscular arms tightens for a second, together with the bridge of her sharp nose. There’s an initial moment when he thinks she’s had some vision in her dreams, but then he notices the locks that have escaped her ponytail, rebellious and indomitable as her soul is, and he guesses the tickle they make on her slender neck is to blame. The early sunlight plays with her golden hair in nice ways, he finds himself figuring, tracing luminous lines.

Last night’s memories are all a blur. He doesn’t recall anything being alcoholic, among the drinks they brought, but the foggy lenses he can see the previous hours through seem to tell him otherwise. Thinking about it, though, he doesn’t even remember checking. After all, in the afternoon, Cassie and Tim had just left him and Bart wandering in the autogrill and picking something to take along. They should’ve expected that they would have chosen the funniest looking and most colored bottles, regardless of anything that could be written on them. At least, he could’ve tried being responsible, but then Bart had shown him a box with a rainbow running all over it. It was just outrageous to decline.

_Well_ – perhaps, among the Coca-Colas and the Sprites, some alcohol _had_ slipped.

But, hey, Tim didn’t drive with any of it in his body. Everything had stayed in the back of the car until they had reached– wherever they are right now.

It had started casually, to be fair. Tim had come up to them, all happy and proud, because he had finally managed to buy a car on his own, without asking Bruce any money nor courtesy for some discount. But of course they made him regret in a second; wiggling eyebrows, suggestions that were less subtle than they should’ve been, friendly pats on the shoulders. It was still absurd, how Tim could not hate them despite the way they constantly pestered him and were basically the only reason he ever got out of his house aside from patrol and school. Most likely, it was _exactly_ the reason why he kept loving them so much.

«So… where do you suppose we can go– oh, I’m sorry, _I can drive you?_ »

Bart had jumped vibrating with excitement. «Let’s go see the stars!»

«Yeah!» Cassie had burst just as enthusiastic, lifting a laughing, freckled ball on her shoulders. «Somewhere in the middle of nowhere! Where there are no city lights or anything like that!»

«Somewhere we can blast music at the volume we want without people coming and complaining!» Conner had added himself to the party, raising in turn Cassie with Bart still on her.

Tim had rolled his eyes. The grin he was desperately trying to hold back sold out the eagerness they were giving him. «Well, fine then. I guess there’s no reason I shouldn’t. After all, someone else can always patrol a little more for a night, can’t they.»

«Yeah, baby!» Tearing a screech from him, Conner shifted Cassie and Bart on one shoulder, lifting Tim by his thighs with his free arm. He didn’t even try protesting, though; he unsuccessfully suppressed a giggle, hugging the other two with the excuse of trying not to slip because _I swear to God, Kon, if I fall and break my bones it’s because of you_ –

Everything had come immediately soon after. Bart was already sitting in the back of the car, and Tim had scolded him for vibrating in before he could open it; Bart had pouted a little, but it didn’t last much. The engine starting had felt like the lights of a theatre shutting down, a sign of the careless greatness that was to come. 

Conner and Cassie had spent five minutes arguing about the radio station – «It was Sex Pistols! Do you have any taste?» «Even the name makes them damn showoffs! Can’t we listen to _normal_ music?» «As if you don’t listen to Halsey on repeat!» «She has an _awesome_ sound, how do you–»

In the end, Bart was designed to choose when to change station and to what. He seemed to have a lot of fun, however; that was probably why they had settled for it. And his decisions weren’t even so catastrophic; it just took the most upbeat and lively tune possible to satisfy him and make him sing along at the top of his lungs, barely sitting still and not losing a chance to involve the others in his concert – «We are», he shouted with Patrick Stump, then, as he pointed at the three of them, their «wild!» resonated, and all together: «We are like young volcanoes!»

The only time they had stopped along the way was to buy things to drink and eat, and then the car had moved for at least three hours straight, always going down the narrowest roads, searching for the end of the tarmac line like the edge of an ocean. Longing for the dive they would’ve taken into the deep water; freezing, limpid, swimming among the reflections of the sunlight and free like birds, between the water and the sky. 

The vehicle bounced on roads that were so bumpy it was even generous to call them such, irregular lanes barely traced by rooting bunches of grass out. The last one reached the courtyard of a farm – Conner stuck his head out of the window, howling a greeting to the wood building like it was the Kent’s – and they had no choice but get off the track, uneven ground and tall grass rustling against the car, with a hissed swear everytime the bottles made a weird sound in Cassie’s lap and 

Bart and Conner burst into laughter from the backseat – «Who does even _think_ ‘holy bat crap’?»

Kon would’ve probably gone on mocking him, but then Avril Lavigne had started singing, and Bart had climbed on his shoulder to keep the balance, going wild with his greatest performance ever since they had entered the car. 

Useless to say, the whole cab had proceeded to wobble in alarming ways, and three terrified voices would’ve protested, weren’t they too busy joining him.

The sun had accompanied them all traveling long; first watching from above, heating the streams of cool air around them. The time to leave them had eventually come, however. It had slowly sunk in the ground, a golden aura like the yolk of a liquid and sweet egg, still looking at them, warmly. And it had entrusted with them the night sky, a small moon painted with a pure white and a quilt of stars, as many as none of them had ever seen. 

The city was never their natural habitat, after all. It was there, in the middle of nowhere with no one watching, that they really shone at their best – just like them, as the four of them swang the doors open and crumbled out, bare feet in the grass that tickled their skin, and they had just one more reason to laugh and giggle like they had no worries in the world. 

They had sat down, the groceries on one side and an empty bag to gather the trash on the other, and had tried playing truth or dare, but it had turned out to be the most pointless idea ever, since they knew each other so well there was nothing they didn’t know or had never done.

So they had just talked, stopping when a specific song came up on the radio; they had made silly questions, then more serious ones and even more serious ones and then sillier than silly ones. It was heart to heart to heart to heart dialogues, that made no sense and went nowhere in particular, about life and the world and string worms. There were candies and soda, chocolate and curiously colored drinks. 

After a few minutes or maybe hours, they all had found themselves yawning, limbs as heavy as their eyelids despite their heads feeling so light. Bart had brought forward the possibility of sleeping right there, lying on the ground all snuggled together and letting the new day call them back to consciousness. It was a shame the sky had decided to betray them in such a perfect moment; cold water had drawn first small dots on their skin, and then grey clouds had dumped rain all over them, scenting the field with an unmistakable smell.

Laughter blending with coughs, they had rushed into the car, collecting the bags and the jackets as fast as they could. Not more than half an hour was the time they were able to stay awake, before sleep finally caught them in their run from everything.

And now, as his mind clears up, Conner is able to put the pieces back together, and he goes on checking if he actually remembered to buy the coffee cups for Tim.

As he reaches the bag, though, he presses a little too much with his arm on Bart’s knees. He mumbles something, rambling syllables resembling ‘Max’ or ‘school’, and in a second his eyes are wide open, just like his smile as he untangles himself off Conner. «Hey, good morning!»

He tries to answer, but apparently he’s not ready yet to put actual words together, so he grumbles what should simulate a ‘good morning’. 

With a groan, Cassie stretches too, crossing her legs so she’s able to look at them from her seat. «Gee, Bart, how can you be so… so…» Unable to find the right term, she lets out an undefined whine, pointing at him with a wave of her hands. «…this early?»

Bart shrugs. «Why aren’t _you_ , instead?»

Conner and Cassie are interrupted from being about to punch him by Tim, who releases a low growl like some caveman. «Coffee?»

He adds no verb nor any kind of other words, but Conner has got his back, just as always. He picks a carton cup up from the bag and throws it at him. «Catch.» 

Tim grabs it in mid-air, murmuring a slurred «Thanks», and brings it to his mouth like he could die if he didn’t, with a sigh of satisfactory relief. The cup hangs from his thin fingers, for a second, as he seems to be contemplating something he’d almost forgotten until now. It’s the reality of his everyday life, standing the darkness the mantle imposes on him; the need to be perfect, afraid that the tiniest mistake will make him unworthy of the great legacy on his shoulders that comes from the family he belongs to. The knowledge that he needs to hide and suppress any insecurity or imperfection he has, as a barely twenty-one years old, tired college student, in order to be everything he’s needed to be.

_But not with them._

«You guys make me feel _free_.» he simply says. He doesn’t add anything else to the silence in the car; keeps staring at the coffee, eventually taking another sip. He knows they know. They understand. They always do.

Cassie looks at him, traces of sleep hardly on her cheeks now. Ponders, thinks about all the expectations Diana had for her. Being a symbol of feminine strength, mighty and unbeatable and yet kind, compassionate and polite. The arms of a warrior and the heart of a caretaker, a safe shelter for anyone in need, and never be rude nor ungracious, because that’s just not what Wonder Girl is about. And Donna was good at it, wearing stars on her body and taking care of all around her, with a gentle smile and elegant movements. But Cassie just isn’t like that, not one inch; she is genuinely vigorous in anything she does, fierce and untameable to the point that she’s been told more than once she has to hold herself, or to be more feminine. She sometimes has the feeling she will never be able to reach the point that was set for her.

_But not with them._

«Do you mind?» Without waiting for an answer, she takes the cup from Tim’s hand, slowly sipping. «Anyways, I quote Tim.» She pauses for a second. She doesn’t look at them, perhaps not to see their reaction to her words. «You guys make me feel like I am _enough_.»

Bart is leaning against the back of her seat, the lower part of his face hidden in his arms up to his pointy nose. He’s probably realizing how he has no place in the world, either; how he had run away from a future where everyone looked at him like a lab rat, only to find himself in a present where no one knew how to deal with his existence. The other speedsters had found themselves dealing with an hyperactive kid that clearly needed a home – a _family_ , but no one really hinted they felt like committing. Like he was no more than a burden to carry around; like he could dissipate, and everyone would’ve been perfectly okay with that. And just as soon as Max had started to love him, he had disappeared, and his sad exodus had begun again. Everywhere is out of place, for him.

_But not with them._

«Give me!» He reaches out for the cup, stopping a second later. «Oh, right, I can’t drink that.» He looks at Cassie, almost apologetic for a moment; then his eyes wander over Conner, and Tim, with another second of silence that doesn’t sound like him. «By the way– uh. You, you all… you really make me feel _wanted_.»

Deep talks really aren’t like them, nor are deep thoughts, not usually. Although, Conner feels like they somehow need this, to be alone with each other and themselves, away from the mess their lives are. After all, it’s not like he’s any more serene than they all are. Biologically speaking, he’s half hero and half villain; that would be enough to drive any human mad. He sweat from the beginning to gain his honor, the right to wear that ‘S’ on his chest, over his heart. He’s had to show the whole world that the heroic one was the only part that mattered, that Superman’s would be the only legacy he’d follow. But then, that side of him that he’d emptied, throwing away everything that was in it, was just _hollow_. Like he would always miss something, like he was destined to never be whole again; and yet, he has to pretend that’s enough, that the only half good looks everyone directs at him don’t hurt him.

_But not with them._

He accepts the cup Bart is offering him, taking a few, large sips. He taps his fingertips on the carton, one, two, three, four times. «You make me feel _whole_.»

Silence hovers above them. Maybe none of them was made for this world, or maybe it’s the people around them that have issues. In any case, _this_ is their home, the place where they don’t have to be anybody but themselves. Where flaws don’t make them unlovable or wrong – where they’re allowed to be imperfectly perfect human beings. Their hearts are like pieces of the same, unintelligible puzzle, and how lucky were they, to find the others of their kind. 

The outside demands them to grow up, to lose their bright colors and to take more responsibilities, and who knows if they will be able to carry them without breaking. They are no longer fourteen years old kids, playing superheroes and without a thought in the world; but when they are together, they can forget for a while about adulthood, about the rush of getting older, and just be _young_. Getting lost in some unknown countryside, singing at the top of their lungs along to old music, sitting in the grass and letting insects slide under their clothes; thinking that this life is too awesome to last forever, but it sure is nice, every now and then. 

Tim is the one to break the silence. «Kon, could you give me my coffee back? And– is there anything to eat we haven’t had already?»

He laughs in response, while Bart and Cassie are digging already into the groceries bag. «Sure, boss! Now, after breakfast, of course–» he specifies, grabbing the Pop-Tarts Cassie’s handing him. «–what do we plan on doing?»

Tim raises an eyebrow. «Well, I thought we’d go back to–»

«Why don’t we look for the end of the world?» Bart’s freckled cheeks are already full with chocolate, but his words are miraculously understandable. «I bet it’s a lot of fun.»

Tim lays his elbow on the back of the seat, a small smile opening up on his face. «Yeah, that sounds pretty much okay, too.»

**Author's Note:**

> aaaaand here it is!! comments and kudos are very very appreciated!! <3  
> my tumblr is [sunflowers-for-young-heroes](https://sunflowers-for-young-heroes.tumblr.com/), if you wanna drop by i'm always there!!  
> bye!  
> a kiss,  
> choco.


End file.
